We thank God for the growth in the Seventh-day Adventist Church since Global Mission began some three decades ago.

I don't think we have ever sat down to discuss a subject of greater importance than Global Mission. Global Mission requires a strategy in order to carry the message of God's love, the saving grace of Christ, and His soon coming to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people. A global mission and a global strategy which extends from continent to continent, country to country, city to city, group to group, and ultimately person to person.

We’ve seen many new people groups and countries entered. We’ve seen thousands of new churches planted. We’ve seen literally millions of people find hope and salvation in Jesus.

Of course, many mission challenges still remain. But that’s nothing new!

When the good news about Jesus spread from Jerusalem some 2,000 years ago, it didn’t happen because the apostles came together, planned together, prayed together, and said “I Will Go.”

No! Sadly, it only happened as a side-effect, a by-product, of persecution. When believers fled Jerusalem for safety, they shared the good news in the places where they landed.

Like Syrian Antioch, where the church was started by refugees from Jerusalem. Today’s Antioch—now called Antakya—is located just over the Turkish side of the border. And it’s still a destination for refugees. Tens of thousands of refugees have poured over the border from Syria in the past few years.

It was here in Antioch that the followers of Jesus were first called Christians. Just over the hill is a cave that was one of the first cave churches where they believe was one of the places where those early Christians met. This soon replaced Jerusalem as the mother church, and it became the base for sending out missionaries.

The apostle Paul launched his missionary journeys from here, planting churches throughout Turkey and the then known world. Today, Antakya is in the heart of the 10/40 Window, one of our most challenging mission areas, where more than 60% of the world's population lives. In this window, there are some 7,000 unreached people groups. They're considered unreached because they don't have enough of a Christian presence to continue without outside help.

In this window, you find some of the world's poorest people and also some of the world's richest. It's also home to the world's great religions with only a handful of Christians. In fact, right here in the Middle East, there are cities of more than 1 million people and not one single Seventh-day Adventist.

Of course, our urban mission challenge is not limited to the Middle East or the 10/40 Window. In Africa, Asia-Pacific, the Americas, Europe, cities—where the majority of the world’s population now live—are our new mission field. And of course the cities are home to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people.

In any large city today you’ll find ethnic enclaves, or neighborhoods, such as Little Italy, or Chinatown, or Little India, or Little Korea—the list goes on. People like to stick together. And in the large cities you’ll find every conceivable religion, belief system, or non-belief system. And it’s this last group—the non-believers, the secular, the post-Christians, those who live their lives without any reference to God—it’s this rapidly growing group that is particularly a mission challenge.

How do we even begin to reach people who don’t believe in God and have never seen a Bible?

How do you begin to reach people who are rich and increased with goods and feel as if they have need of nothing?

These are questions that have confronted the church in Australia, New Zealand, Europe for many years. Now they’re starting to confront the Church in every world territory.

Behind me is St. Marks, which was built in the 1820s as a Church of England chapel. Today, it is no longer a place of worship. It is the Mercado Mayfair. It's a food hall where people come to eat, to drink, to socialize. And it's like hundreds of other former churches throughout England, throughout Europe, that no longer serve their original purpose. They have become apartments. They have become restaurants and bars and art galleries and yoga studios, everything except that original purpose, and they are symbolic of the new post-Christian society that we are facing.

Today we look at the growing secular and post-Christian populations.

We look at the adherence of other world religions and unreached people groups of the 10/40 Window.

We look at the cities.

In the face of such huge mission challenges, some see walls but we see opportunities.

Many see lack of funds, but we see the Source of all funds.

Many see our weakness, but we see His strength.

God has invited us to participate with Him in His mission of salvation here on earth. Who will say, “I Will Go?”